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Besides, Idra always said the weather was best left to itself. It knows its business better than the wisestseidhrcan.
What was left to me, if fire, air, or water would not do? Earth? Perhaps I could call upon the boulders for some aid, or the hard-frozen ground, but I doubted it. There was no tree to ask for help; I carried a short curved healer’s knife, the most allowed to one withseidhr, but even its metal was scant protection.
There was nothing to be done but keep walking, for the moment, and to strain my ears as well as Farsight’s.
And pray, to any divinity who cared to listen.
Content with Simple
It is said the Enemy cursed those among the Secondborn who would not bend the knee, a slow creeping malediction making them more beast than man. Ever they fight the corruption, for like all his gifts it has its uses—which turn in the hand, and bring destruction upon the wielder.
—Tharos son of Ildar, lord of lost Naras
The howls grew closer. It became more difficult to coax Farsight along; she walked unwilling, her shoulders and hindquarters twitching. My feet turned to clumsy stone and I occupied myself almost exclusively with the warming breath, hoping I would not lose a tip—finger, toe, ear, nose—to the cold. My father’s people called such wounds a toll paid to Lokji, while my mother’s held them to be kisses from passing black-ice sprites. There is very little treatment for such things even with weirding, and the scars they leave are unattractive at best.
What manner ofvolvacould not even keep the cold away? Yet another test, but with no Idra close by in case of failure, no pride shining from my mother’s gaze should I succeed, none of Astrid’s breathlessly whispered questions or Arn’s broad, happy smile.
I would be content with simple survival.
The wind whispered over crowding boulders, ruffling rimed dead grass and bracken. More starshine fell, a pure cold light, theGreat River across the sky finally shaking free of high cloud. Farsight slowed still more, ears flicking nervously to match her anxious tail, each hoof-raise more tentative, though the scent-road was still there.
“Beautiful Fryja.” I found myself half-chanting in the Old Tongue between bursts of warming breath. “Summer-clad or iceborne, lady whom my mother loves, keep them away. Blind them, baffle their noses, keep them mazed.”Seidhrthreaded through the words—not very much of it, for I needed to conserve my strength.
But it was enough to keep us from the wolves, if indeed they were wolves and not misshapen things like the sheep-creature. I had never heard tell of such things within a day or two’s journey of Dun Rithell, and had they descended upon our flocks I could only imagine the hue and cry.
Farsight finally stopped amid a scattering of head-sized stones half lost in frost-withered grass, and could not be induced to step further. Too cold even to shiver, I tugged at the reins, prayer andseidhrjolted from my tongue. “Come, nervous one. We must keep moving.”
But the white horse would not move. Her head rose, ears far forward, and her tail hung motionless. She was a statue in strengthening nightglow, tiny curls of steam rising from her flanks.
We were both losing far too much heat.
“Please,” I whispered, as more howls rose into the night. It sounded suspiciously as if they ringed us save for a single slice of dead silence, fortunately straight ahead. “We may escape them, dear one, if we move. You must.” I tugged at the reins again. “Please.”
In the space of a few short days I had been reduced to pleading with a horse, unable to feel my extremities, while wolves or monsters closed in. It was not a fit end for avolva, and irritation fed by fear threatened to turn into full-blown anger.
I had never considered that I might hold my father’s battle-madness. Yet that night, for the very first time, I think I came close.
Farsight consented to one more step, but only one, and halted again in the cold silver gloaming. My braids had slipped somewhat, and tendrils of dark hair brushed at my cheeks while I hauled uponthe reins, too cold to attempt moreseidhr. It was just as well, for the wind veered and I heard not wolfsong but what seemed to be voices.
Humanvoices.
Yet for all I knew it was the trickery of the cold, or mere wishful thinking. “Stubborn piece of…” I gave another harsh yank to the reins; Farsight did not even deign to notice. “I am trying to save you, stupid horse!”
It was laughable. When the beasts closed in, I would be hard-pressed to protect either of us.
“Sooooolveeeeeiii…” The wind, or something else, keened my name. I let out a despairing cry in return, for suddenly I thought it Arneior’s voice, a shieldmaid’s spirit riding through winter night in search of her charge.
I do not know how much later they found me, but it could not have been long. There were two glimmers high upon the slope of a hill to our left scattered with great hulking boulder-shapes, blue stars come to earth, and the wolves howled almost constantly as the lights approached. Despite all my entreaties, the mare still refused to move but instead let out a shattering neigh, and I heard similar equine replies.
Which did me little good, for in my frozen, fear-drenched state I thought them perhaps a cavalcade of the mounted dead come to judge before taking me among their number to Hel’s country, and was almost petrified. Yet there were hoof-falls, and a string of curses in a familiar light alto.
I dropped Farsight’s reins, staggering forward upon feet I could not feel. Everything below my knees was utterly numb.
Arneior fair leapt from the back of her mount and ran through flickering lamplight, throwing one arm around me while holding her spear well away. I buried my face in her mantled shoulder and breathed her in; she muttered relieved imprecations into my hair.
Aeredh was hard upon her heels, and ’twas he who beckoned Farsight. The beast obeyedhim, of course, for the Elder have a way with every free creature, and besides the horses were busily greeting each other as well. The blue stars were Elder-wrought lanterns like Idra’s prized solstice-light, burning clear and cold, held by Efain the scarredand another Northerner—Karas, with his hair in a leather-wrapped club, pale and with his hand to hilt as he scanned what could be seen of our surroundings.
I sagged against my shieldmaid, doing my best not to burst into tears unfitting for a fullvolvaor even a mere adult with no weirding.
